--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Hjalmar Andersson <hjandr@...> wrote:

>
> Hi!
>
> I'm trying to find out more about the etymology of the ON word

'vargr'. In the attached file I speculate a bit on the basis of what I
have found out so far.

>
> /Hjalmar

Hi Hjalmar,

I just read these messages on the Yahoo Groups website, so I'm not
able to see you attachment. There is an interesting article on the
Swedish 'varg' in Elof Hellquist's Svensk etymologisk ordbok [
http://www.lysator.liu.se/runeberg/svetym/ ]. The site seems to be
having technical problems at the moment, but if I remember rightly, he
suggests there that PGmc, *vargaz meant criminal, as it does in most
old Germanic languages, and was only later applied to the wolf in
Scandinavia as a noa-name. This is a polynesian term used by
folklorists for a euphemism used in place of a taboo word or divine
name. He cites a German proverb which meant something like "speak of
the wolf and he comes running", and suggests that this alternative
name "criminal, strangler" was needed to avoid the danger that such a
dangerous animal would supernaturally hear its name spoken and be
summoned by it. Contrariwise, derivatives of 'wulf' are used in Old
English to refer to criminals, pirates and violent people: wæl-wulfas
(vikings), wulf-héafod-tréow (gallows), wylfen (wolvish, used in the
poem Déor of the notorious Gothic tyrant Eormanric).

Llama Nom